Extreme Makeover - Adams Home Edition

As many of you are aware - we purchased a 1978 townhome in August 2007. I was born in 1978 and I am old (turning 30 this year!) - so this townhome is old too. We knew some remodeling was in store and budgeted for this accordingly. Many of you have asked to see the townhome, so I decided to take you all on a tour of our lovely abode. This picture is before and after of our bedroom. The walls were already red when we moved in and it matched our existing bedroom set, so we kept it. Notice the shutters. I had to use all of my "wifely begging" techniques to get them... but they were worth every minute of whining.
This is our kitchen. The before shots are on top. We got new appliances and painted the walls green. Notice the new kitchen table that was previously blogged about. We love it!!
This is our patio. I forgot to take before shots, so these are both current. We would love to get a patio set so we could enjoy outdoor meals in our amazing Arizona weather... however, both of our neighbors smoke CONSISTENLY and this puts a real damper on our ability to enjoy the patio. I would have seriously reconsidered buying the home if I had known this little annoyance.
This is our living room area. The pics were taken right after Christmas (hence the poinsetta). The only before picture is in the top left corner. Please notice the aforementioned shutters in these shots as well. If you'd like my training video on "101 begging techniques to get nice things from your husband" - I'd be happy to send you a copy. :)
This is our guest room - come and visit ANYTIME! We painted the walls, changed the ceiling fan and put new fabric on the sitting bench.
This was the nastiest room in the house and took the most remodeling love. It was the ORIGINAL bathroom from 1978. There was nasty mold on the ceilings and it was just disgusting. We replaced the floor, the lights, the toilet, the vanity, the mirror and added the cabinet above the toilet and paint. Basically, the only thing we did not change was the shower.
This is the bathroom in our downstairs hallway. We just painted and added a cool mirror and light fixtures.
This is our little angel's room. The only before picture is in the top left corner. This room took a lot of work as well. We did all the painting ourselves. We added a new ceiling fan and had to do some major work on the tacky wiring job they had done with the electrical outlets. She obviously does not lack clothing options. :)

We messed with Texas!

We flew to Austin this weekend to surprise Greg's brother for his birthday and to celebrate Easter where everything is bigger and better... you guessed it... Texas. This is his daughter Anna holding Emma. Anna will turn three in April and is absolutely ADORABLE! She just loved baby Emma and kept asking to "pet her" and saying "I just love this baby - can I hold her?".
Here we are cuddled up on the couch watching a movie on Easter. One night, Greg was in our bedroom bouncing and rocking Emma to sleep and Anna ran into her room, grabbed her baby doll, wrapped her up nice and tight like Emma, inspected Greg's actions to ensure that she was doing all the right moves, and proceeded to bounce and rock her baby to sleep. It was darling!
Emma did have an Easter dress - but she also had this outfit, so we actually had to change her half way through the day so she could wear both! I know, we go a bit overboard, but she's our first, so I think we are allowed.
This is our sister-in-law Gina with the two girls. Gina is expecting their second in September and we are so excited! Thanks to Gina for helping us plan the surprise and for cooking many amazing meals. Wish I could eat that well all the time! We had such a wonderful time with them and stayed up WAY to late each night just talking and laughing. How blessed we are to have such an amazing family!!
This is the t-shirt we made Emma. She was intended to wear it for the big surprise... but she had other plans and managed to poop through the shirt on the airplane. Fiasco #1 - No extra clothes in the diaper bag on the plane. So she wore her cardigan sweater with nothing underneath. CLASSY. Fiasco #2 - How in the *BLEEP* are you supposed to change a dirty diaper in those teeny tiny airplane bathrooms? Seriously people. I basically turned into a circus act to contort my body in such a way that this task could be accomplished. The flight attendants were knocking on the door because evidently I was taking too long. I say it again... seriously people.

FREEDOM!!

OK so I've only seen the edited Braveheart (I swear!) - but as I drove away last night to resume my Tempe Symphony rehearsals I felt like screaming "FREEDOM" out my window. I took a maternity leave from symphony for the last concert and after 3 1/2 months reclaimed my spot in the back of the second violins last night. I love little Emma to pieces, but it was so nice to leave for 3 hours and play my instrument. SO NICE. Thank you to Greg for staying home with our little non-bottle-taking princess. I guess Mel Gibson and I have something else in common besides our nice back sides. :)

The Baffling Bottle Debacle

Houston we have a problem. Our precious miracle baby does not care for bottles. I think we jinxed ourselves into the problem, because we were so paranoid this would happen. We started attempting bottle usage at 3 weeks, and have been trying every day since, with no success. We have tried multiple bottle/nipple brands (seen in above picture). We've tried all the regular tricks... Greg feeding her, me leaving the house, etc... Do any of you have any suggestions or just some sympathetic words? We have season tickets to the Broadway shows that come through Phoenix and we missed "The Color Purple" on Saturday because we couldn't leave our angel with a babysitter and no food. I guess these are the sacrifices that accompany parenthood?!?!
On another note, Emma survived her shots beautifully! I know she looks sad and miserable in this picture... but she really was a trooper considering the 5 shots! And God bless Infant Tylenol.
Seriously. I kiss those cheeks ALL DAY LONG!
Houston...it's the Adams again and we have another problem! We awoke this morning and planned to eat a yummy breakfast and lounge together for a few hours before our 11:30 church. We came downstairs to find our kitchen flooded. Let's just say our breakfast and lounging turned into a shop vac and granola bars in the car running late to church.

Riot Against Word Verification

My very intelligent friend Laura taught me how to delete the annoying word verification feature off of my post section. Previously, I did not think I had an option, but believed I was being forced into the word verification world. If you choose to use word verification because of spam- that is fine. However, I have chosen to delete this extra step for my readers. If I start to get spam, I guess I'll engage my word verification pal. If you are like me and didn't know you could stop the insanity - I'll pass along the instructions my great friend Laura (THANK YOU LAURA!) sent to me. Log in to your blog site's dashboard, select settings, select the comment section, scroll down to the question "show word verification for comments?" and select NO. Seriously no pressure here to conform - but I thought I would help out those of you in my computerly challenged boat. Sail away friends!

We say goodbye and we say hello...

We say goodbye... to guilt about Emma's upcoming immunizations. I just hate the thought of being present while they give my little baby 5 shots, but when I see the image below of what her body could look like with measles, I keep my paranoid brain in perspective.

We say goodbye... to our dear friends Matt and Shauna.

They are moving to DC this week and we will miss them TREMENDOUSLY!!

Best of luck guys!

We say hello... to Greg and Lara while they visited Arizona this weekend! They came all the way from Atlanta to see our little Emma and visit with other friends. We are so grateful that they came and had a wonderful time with them! Thank you guys for coming. It meant the world!

Aren't they a darling couple? And what a darling baby they are holding... :)

What the Widget?

So I stole a website from my friend Ashly and created a super cool blog page... which I was pretty proud of... UNTIL I realized that the "widgets" they needed permission to erase were actually pretty important. Evidently the erased "widgets" were my blogging buddy list and my music and all the other things on the right side of my blog. Who knew that these said widgets could lead me to hours of trying to recuperate my blogging buddy list? I will never underestimate the power of the wonder widget. That being said... please check my blogging buddy list and if you are NOT on it - PLEASE post your site address in my comment section. DOWN WITH WIDGETS and all the pain they can cause a sleep deprived mother.

No Thanks

The previous post was what I'm thankful for. This post is dedicated to what I am NOT thankful for. I am not thankful for my BRAND STINKIN' NEW bag of yummy trail mix from Costco that spilled all over my soon to be mopped kitchen floor. ARGH! Did I scoop them up and put them back in the bag to eat at a later time? You betcha!! Wanna come over for trail mix? :)
I'm not thankful for SLEEP confusion by my precious baby. She can't seem to understand that 7 week old babies need to be SLEEPING. She does great during the night - but not so good during the day. 10 minutes here, 30 minutes there. I love her to pieces and would be willing to play with her all day long, but this little thing needs her sleep or she turns into a drama queen come 7pm. But how could you be frustrated at the sweet little face? She melts my heart.
Hate to say it. But I'm yet to be thankful for my new calling as the ward music director. I'm sure my gratitude will come with time... but I have been successfully avoiding this calling for the last 12 years. Guess the Lord finally caught up to me. Darn it all. Thankfully my mom and Greg have expert advice and experience that I will benefit from. I am thankful for music - so I'm sure this experience will be positive. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

What are you NOT thankful for?

A Thankful Heart

I'm thankful for fantastic in-laws. Most of Greg's family lives here in Arizona and we are so lucky to have them close! This is my sister-in-law (Tara) and her daughter Taytum with my mother-in-law (Linda). They came over to join Emma and I for lunch last week and we had a wonderful time. Tara is due at the end of May with their second and we are excited for the new cousin!
I'm thankful for a father-in-law who can rock a crying baby to sleep. He and my mother-in-law came over to "hang" with us on Saturday. Every time Emma would start to fuss he would start to rock her (as seen in the picture) and she would calm right down. Lucky Emma to have so many people that love her and care for her.

I'm thankful for very talented friends that make Emma beautiful dresses to show off at church. Our dear friend Courtney made this gorgeous dress! Can you believe it? Everyone at church kept commenting on her dress and were stunned when I told them it was made by a friend.
I'm thankful for my morning walks around Kiwanis Park. I walk every morning with Emma and on Mon, Wed, Fri my wonderful Aunt Sharron joins us with her puppies. For those of you freezing your bums off in other parts of the country, be VERY jealous of our beautiful Arizona weather this time of year... because come summer, I will be VERY jealous of your weather.

What are you thankful for today?

All In A Week's Work

Emma had quite a week:

1. She had a REAL photo shoot with my good friend/neighbor/ward member Bonnie. I think they turned out FANTASTIC! Thank you Bonnie!


2. She had her diaper bag stolen out of her mother's car. Yes, it was unlocked. But darn dishonest people! Her grandma Krebs had it embroidered with her name and everything! Hope the thief can get lots and lots of money at the pawn shop for diapers, wipes, and pacifiers. Dumby.


3. She went to church for the first time. She cried through sacrament, ate through the talks, was lulled to sleep through Sunday School, and slept through RS. All in all - not too bad. But for the record - I'd like to ask if the church is really true when you have children who need to nap in their own bed? :)


4. She went to her first bday party for her cousin Taytum (age 2). Our camera batteries died, so we don't have any proof of this celebration. But, she had so much fun she fell asleep half way through. I think her milk was spiked.


5. Her parents were able to go out for the first time together WITHOUT her. Sure, it was only to pick out a kitchen table. But your qualifications for a hot date significantly decrease when a newborn comes to town. Thank you to Aunt Laura who made this date possible.


6. For the last 4 nights she has slept 6 hour stretches. Her mom knows this may not last, but has been VERY grateful for the sleep this week!


7. She went on her first shopping spree to the Target clearance rack. She didn't have any money, but her mom let her borrow a few bucks. OK OK, her mom doesn't have any money anymore, but her dad let her mom have a few bucks to lend to her.